{"id":621388,"date":"2023-03-24T09:49:02","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T14:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/24\/rumors-of-the-metaverses-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated\/"},"modified":"2023-03-24T09:49:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T14:49:02","slug":"rumors-of-the-metaverses-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/24\/rumors-of-the-metaverses-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumors of the metaverse\u2019s death have been greatly exaggerated"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Meta recently laid off more than 11,000 employees<\/a> in Nov 2022, then another 10,000<\/a> in March 2023, some tech industry watchers concluded it was a nail in the coffin for the metaverse.<\/p>\n

But before we lower the metaverse coffin<\/a> into the ground, let\u2019s remember why Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pivoted to the metaverse in the first place. It provides vital context<\/a> for recent events and casts them in a different light.<\/p>\n

Contrary to popular belief, the decline of Meta<\/a> (the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) did not stem from its investment in Zuckerberg\u2019s vision for the future. Meta\u2019s plummeting stock was tied to its legacy investment in social media platforms whose lifeblood \u2014 the ability to track users and their data \u2014 was being choked off by market forces beyond their control.<\/p>\n

One choke point took effect in April 2021 when Apple introduced changes to its ad-tracking policy<\/a>. In a nutshell, Apple\u2019s \u201cApp Tracking Transparency\u201d feature gave users a clear choice whether to allow a company to track them or their data across different apps and websites.<\/p>\n

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If a user did not grant that permission, Facebook effectively lost the ability to both target and measure the impact of an ad. The new rules bit a $10 billion chunk<\/a> out of Meta\u2019s advertising business. This represents nearly 25% of Meta\u2019s net profit in 2021.<\/p>\n

Facebook was aware of its vulnerability to such policy shifts. As an ad-based business, Facebook didn\u2019t own the hardware platform its products lived on. Nor did it own the operating systems and app stores its apps ran on. That placed it at the whim of companies such as Apple and Google.<\/p>\n

Long before 2021, in an effort to resolve the issue, Facebook spent several years in discussions with Apple<\/a> about an ad-free, subscription-based version of Facebook. The deal would have netted Apple a 30% slice of Facebook\u2019s revenue on Apple\u2019s platform, but negotiations failed.<\/p>\n

The pivot<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Six months after Apple\u2019s privacy change, Zuckerberg steered Facebook hard left, rebranded it as Meta and went full speed ahead toward the metaverse, fueled by a multibillion-dollar spend on R&D and product development.<\/p>\n

The company had already been positioning itself for this self-reinvention for years. In 2012, Facebook rolled out its own open app store<\/a>. In 2014, to own the hardware platform, it purchased VR headset maker Oculus<\/a>. The moves gave Facebook more power to control the fate of its own apps and to benefit from the sales of other apps, in a similar fashion to Apple.<\/p>\n

The wisdom of self-disrupting in anticipation of market inflection points is well-established in the tech industry. Equally well established are the dangers of failing to do so. Look no further than the likes of Blockbuster, Kodak, MySpace and Palm Pilot \u2014 once household names that became cautionary tales due to their failure to innovate. Meta did what it had to.<\/p>\n

In all the speculation about the demise of the metaverse, two important points tend to get lost. First and most obviously, Meta and the metaverse are not the same<\/a>. Even if Meta were to ultimately sink, the metaverse \u2014 a shared, persistent<\/a>, and open experience characterized by virtual and augmented 3D worlds \u2014 is far bigger than any one company.<\/p>\n

Second, inflection points can take a long time to unfold, and we humans often get the timing wrong. Roy Amara, a Stanford University computer scientist and longtime head of the Institute for the Future, coined a \u201claw\u201d for this tendency. Amara\u2019s Law<\/a> states that we tend to overestimate the impact of a new technology in the short run, but we underestimate it in the long run. The law has much in common with Gartner\u2019s hype cycle<\/a> for emerging technologies.<\/p>\n

Examples of Amara\u2019s Law abound. Consider self-driving vehicles and VR\/AR, both of which have been criticized as overhyped and unlikely to deliver on their promise. This tendency is nothing new. There were even those who believed the Internet was no more than a passing fad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Going by Amara\u2019s Law, one could argue that those who insisted the metaverse would change our daily lives in the near future were overestimating its impact in the short term.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also evidence that those declaring the metaverse<\/a> is dead are underestimating its impact in the long run. To use Gartner\u2019s terms, the naysayers have simply slipped from the \u201cpeak of inflated expectations\u201d to the \u201ctrough of disillusionment.\u201d But that trough is just that \u2014 a temporary dip until the metaverse climbs its way up to the \u201cplateau of productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Numerous technology trends point to the inevitable opportunity for the metaverse. For instance:<\/p>\n